Friday, May 2, 2014

Japan's Route to Pearl Harbor

Prime Minister Hideki Tojo

The US fleet
sailed into Yedo Bay under Commodore Perry in 1853 and opened Japan to the
western world. Over subsequent years the
nation industrialized under the rule of the Meiji Restoration. This rising manufacturing economy of the Far
East now required resources the mineral-starved island nation could not provide
itself. Like the imperial nations it
emulated Japan looked to dominate neighboring lands rich in the strategic
resources it needed most – oil, rubber, iron, nickel, tin, other minerals. There were wars – first with China, then
Russia and then China, once again. Japan
acquired Formosa, Manchuria, Korea and strings of islands that extended deep into
the central Pacific, nearly as far to the east as the US-held Midway
Island. In time western nations became
alarmed. The British, French and Dutch
all had colonies around the South China Sea – well within reach of Japan. The United States controlled the Philippines
and had a naval base in Manila. There
was also racial friction. Japan was not
part of the whites-only club. The leadership
in Tokyo came to believe the Asian economy would be better administered by
Japanese.

War broke
out in Europe in 1939. France fell to
Germany in 1940. Japan was bogged down
in its own war with China. She needed to
cut China off from the supplies it received through French Indochina and
British-held Burma. Japan was allied with
Berlin and found Indochina easy to pluck from the German-sanctioned Vichy
French government. The US, already angered
by Japanese military action in China, cut off its exports to Japan as Japanese
troops showed up in Saigon and her ships appeared off Cam Ranh Bay. The island was left without its major source
for oil and steel. The act was an
economic declaration of war. Negotiations
proved futile as neither nation was prepared to budge from their original
positions. The aggressive diplomatic
posture of Washington was not matched by the country’s military position. The United States was not prepared for
war. Neither was Britain in the
Pacific. England was struggling to stay
afloat in a submarine infested Atlantic.
Her armies had met their match in the deserts of North Africa up against
the forces of the German general Rommel.

Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto

Japan was
well aware of this situation. For Tokyo,
accepting US demands meant a sharp reduction in her economic power. Refusing meant war. Her new Prime Minister, General Tojo, would be
easily seduced into adopting a military solution. The reasons were compelling. Japan had to act soon. Its oil reserves gave its powerful Imperial
Navy little time to act. Foremost, Japan
would need the oil and mineral-rich resources of the Dutch East Indies and
British Malaysia to power her industries.
She would want to take Burma from Britain and, thereby, cut off the
Burma Road – the final supply route to Nationalist China leader, Chiang Kai-shek,
and his Kuomintang army. Japan would
also need to overrun islands of the Celebes Sea, New Guinea and the Solomon
Islands in order to protect her southern flank that ran as far as
Australia.

Then there
was the issue of the Americans in the Philippines. The US Asiatic fleet in Manila Bay was
inconsequential but the Americans had begun to move B-17 heavy bombers into the
area and Tokyo didn't need this threat to her fleet activity. A few well-placed bombs and a powerful, hard
to replace Japanese battleship would soon be lost beneath the waves. As it turns out, American forces in the
Philippines were extremely vulnerable. Manila
was 5,600 miles from Honolulu and to supply US Philippine troops required
getting past the Marshall, Caroline and Mariana Islands – all of them already
based by the Japanese military. The only
means Washington had of doing this would require a drive by its powerful
Pacific fleet, now based at Pearl Harbor.

Gen. Douglas MacArthur - Philippines

Japanese Admiral
Isoroku Yamamoto, Commander of the Combined Fleet, opposed war with America
because, having spent time in the U.S. as a student at Harvard, he appreciated the
nation’s enormous industrial potential. Japan’s
industry was small by comparison and a long war with the U.S. could only result
in the island nation’s destruction. None
the less, as a patriot and a military man, Yamamoto felt obliged to produce a
strategy that would result in a stunning victory, followed by a negotiated
peace agreement with Washington. This
scenario of a decisive military engagement leading to a quick peace was the
hoped-for conclusion by leaders in Tokyo.
It is the strategy that won Japan Formosa in 1895 and defeated the
Russians in 1905. Now Tojo, and his
contingent, hoped that destruction of the US fleet at Pearl Harbor, combined
with a dominant Japanese military presence across the Pacific, would force
Washington into signing a peace treaty, having concluded war with Japan would
be futile.

Among the
glaring fallacies of this line of thinking is the belief that Americans would
respond to a humiliating defeat at Pearl Harbor by losing heart and throwing in
the towel. Misconceptions were rampant
in the views of Americans popular to the Japanese as well as American attitudes
toward Japan. It was the dismissive
opinion of Japanese military prowess by Americans that helped to undermine our
readiness at Pearl Harbor in the first place.
The morning of December 7, 1941 and its aftermath six months later at
Midway helped to permanently correct the views each nation held toward the
other.